Finally the insects which had begun to fly at the beginning of this tumult now grew thicker and thicker, when suddenly I was annoyed by fearful bites, and in less time than I have taken to write I was covered by a kind of ants called by the Bakalais Bashikouay. I leaped and fled with the utmost haste in the same direction the insects and beasts had taken. An army of bashikouay ants was advancing, and devouring every living thing in its way. I was almost crazy, for they were in my clothes and on my body, and often when they gave a bite a little piece of flesh would come out.
When I thought I was out of reach I immediately took off my clothes. They had, in their fury, literally buried themselves in these, and their pincers were deep into them; and like the fierce bull-dog of our own country, when once they bite they never let go their hold; and many and many a time their bodies were severed from their head as I pulled them out; their pincers clung still to my flesh.
I defy any living man to stand quiet before an army of bashikouay; he would certainly be killed and devoured. This was incontestably the largest army of bashikouay I have ever seen, and how it swept over the forest, driving every thing before it!
These little ants are more powerful when combined in such an army than any living thing in the forest. All other animate things are put to flight before their march. It is only in the interior that one can have an idea of their number.
I dressed myself again, and began to breathe freely, when lo! these bashikouay were again coming in my direction. So I fled, striking for a path that led to a stream, and at last reached the wet and swampy grounds, which I knew they would not care to approach if they continued to spread and advance in the direction I had taken.
How many and how many times I have been disturbed by these ants in the forests of Africa!
Of all the ants which inhabit the regions I have explored, the most dreaded of all is the bashikouay; it is very abundant, and is the most voracious creature I have ever met. It is the dread of all living animals, from the elephant and the leopard down to the smallest insect.
At the end of this chapter is the drawing of an ordinary bashikouay, taken by the artist from one of the four I had with me.
No wonder that the animal and insect world flies before them! And now I am going to say a good deal of what I know about them; if I should tell you all, the account would appear so incredible that perhaps you would say it must be untrue; but I write this book to instruct you, and to show you that the ways of Nature are wonderful.
These bashikouay, so far as I have been able to observe, do not build a nest or house of any kind; they wander throughout the year, and seem never to have any rest. They are on the march day and night. I never saw them carry any thing away; they devour every thing on the spot.